Fresh Eye on the Radio: Mysteries of the impound lot

Posted at 4:51 PM on December 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Weather

There are fewer guaranteed locks in this world than this one: When the snow ends later this week and the snow emergencies are declared, hundreds of people will show up at the impound lots, shocked that their cars were towed.

Minneapolis and St. Paul have tried signs, Web sites, Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, cellphones, and rap music to spread the word. But after every storm, it's the same story.

Why? We ponder that on today's Fresh Eye on the Radio on The Current. There's still time to save yourself. Here is the information for St. Paul snow emergencies and here is the information for Minneapolis snow emergencies.

(You can also subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or by going here.)

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Comments (5)

Hey Bob -

I listen to you and Mary on my way home from work most afternoons. Gotta say that today was a classic. The 911 thing had me laughing in the car.

The Impound Lot thing was classic.

Posted by Cyd | December 22, 2009 7:34 PM

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It is a shock when your car is towed. Back in the '60's, when I was at the U, and I was the age where it was all about me, my car, such as it was, was towed. How crushing! About 10 years ago, Dadkat and I were at the Cedar Cultural Center and our car was towed because one of us, ahem, wrote the wrong parking spot number on the little envelope. Both times were horrible experiences. Being at the mercy of people who were so jaded with all the sob stories was just so defeating. "sob" But we recovered.

Posted by Momkat | December 22, 2009 10:52 PM

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Momkat, how did you know the car was towed, not stolen?

Posted by Bob Collins | December 22, 2009 10:54 PM

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I was at an car insurance adjuster office a number of years ago and the guy in front of me in line had his truck towed. It wasn't from his house though. The brand new truck had been stolen a month or two before and was parked on the street in a storm. Despite the fact that it had been reported stolen, he still had to pay to get it out of the impound. The bright side of the story - it had been towed from in front of the house of the guy who stole it, and there were pictures of the thief and his girlfriend with their names in the truck.

Posted by Al | December 23, 2009 7:53 AM

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The rules are too dang complicated for someone like me, who is a visitor in the city of Minneapolis. If you don't think so, just follow the link above to the rules. It's 3 screens full of explanation, with diagrams. No doubt if I still lived in Minneapolis, I would internalize this stuff, but it's pretty hard to keep track of for a visitor.
Maybe those highway signs they use for traffic information over the freeways could be employed to spread the word. A message like "Snow Emergency: No Parking odd side until plowed" would help a lot.

Posted by John | December 23, 2009 12:00 PM

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